i have a discouraging problem
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yoongsmy
Posts: 5 Member
hello! i am on my period for a couple days and even though i eat around 1100-1200 calories everyday i cant lose any weight. instead, i gained 1 pound. i tried to detox but it didnt work. i am so lost. please help me
5
Replies
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hello! i am on my period for a couple days and even though i eat around 1100-1200 calories everyday i cant lose any weight. instead, i gained 1 pound. i tried to detox but it didnt work. i am so lost. please help me
I am pretty sure when a woman has her "special" time of the month, hormonal changes cause fluid retention. Dont waste time on "detoxes" , skinny teas, ect. Hint, they don't work.32 -
Also, you're not eating enough unless all you do is sleep.14
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shonnakraft89 wrote: »Also, you're not eating enough unless all you do is sleep.
i am a student so i only study or sleep during the day sadly.2 -
everyone fluctuates. a key point to remember. and it's one pound. not ten.10
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mi_nina_lola wrote: »everyone fluctuates. a key point to remember. and it's one pound. not ten.
its been that way for a week now so i am looking for a way to get out of the situation. thanks for your reply
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It is very normal for women to gain weight during their period. This is why weight loss is a long term thing. You can't judge your progress over the results of a couple of days. Trying to do so and you will go mad. There is no need to detox, overly restrict, or do anything else.
Choose a reasonable weight loss target with a manageable deficit, and work to hit that goal (which is likely higher than 1200), and give it 4 to 6 weeks before you make any real evaluation of its success19 -
Hi there! Here are some general ideas you should take with you.
1. Change your expectations: You shouldn’t be expecting to lose weight within a few days. Healthy weight loss occurs over weeks (you should generally aim to lose between .5 and 2 lbs. week, depending on how close you are to a healthy weight right now.) if you expect to see a new low on the scale every single day, you will get discouraged really fast because that’s not how it works for anybody.
2. Your period causes water-weight-retention bloating, which could cause the scale number to go up temporarily. It’s not fat gain, and you shouldn’t change your plan just because your scale weight goes up a little bit.
3. Your Weight does not stay constant. Even when you are maintaining your weight and keeping the same amount of fat, the scale number will go up and down because of food in your system or water-weight (which is unavoidably affected by lots of things, like high sodium intake, getting your period, starting a new exercise, getting sick, eating more carbs than normal, air travel, etc). This is why you should get a weight-trend app like Happy Scale or Libra, where you input your weight every few days and it will smooth out the highs and lows, giving you an average weight trend to follow.
4. You are very likely aiming for too low of a calorie number. 1200 calories a day is the BARE MINIMUM recommended by the healthcare community, and it’s only appropriate for those who are very short, very old, and/or not moving around at all during the day. Use MFP guided set-up and select a 1 lb per week loss, or .5 lbs per week if you are close to a healthy weight. This will give you a more reasonable amount of calories and make sure you don’t burnout by undereating and fall off the wagon. (Undereating can cause hair loss, muscle loss, fatigue, and eventually endangers the function of your heart).
5. Once you get your calorie target, you should not be trying to stay UNDER it. You should aim for the target as closely as possible, to make sure you’re not undereating. Also, make sure to log your purposeful exercise and eat back at least half of your exercise calories (maybe more, if you end up losing too fast).
Let us know how it goes! Weight loss is not about getting there as fast as possible, because those who use quick tricks to lose lots of weight are much much less likely to keep it off, and they gain it back once they stop the quick tricks.
Use this weight-loss time to find healthy habits that are do-able for the rest of your life.19 -
It is very normal for women to gain weight during their period. This is why weight loss is a long term thing. You can't judge your progress over the results of a couple of days. Trying to do so and you will go mad. There is no need to detox, overly restrict, or do anything else.
Choose a reasonable weight loss target with a manageable deficit, and work to hit that goal (which is likely higher than 1200), and give it 4 to 6 weeks before you make any real evaluation of its success
thank you for your kind words. i will try to go by your advices. it really meant a lot.4 -
gallicinvasion wrote: »Hi there! Here are some general ideas you should take with you.
1. Change your expectations: You shouldn’t be expecting to lose weight within a few days. Healthy weight loss occurs over weeks (you should generally aim to lose between .5 and 2 lbs. week, depending on how close you are to a healthy weight right now.) if you expect to see a new low on the scale every single day, you will get discouraged really fast because that’s not how it works for anybody.
2. Your period causes water-weight-retention bloating, which could cause the scale number to go up temporarily. It’s not fat gain, and you shouldn’t change your plan just because your scale weight goes up a little bit.
3. Your Weight does not stay constant. Even when you are maintaining your weight and keeping the same amount of fat, the scale number will go up and down because of food in your system or water-weight (which is unavoidably affected by lots of things, like high sodium intake, getting your period, starting a new exercise, getting sick, eating more carbs than normal, air travel, etc). This is why you should get a weight-trend app like Happy Scale or Libra, where you input your weight every few days and it will smooth out the highs and lows, giving you an average weight trend to follow.
4. You are very likely aiming for too low of a calorie number. 1200 calories a day is the BARE MINIMUM recommended by the healthcare community, and it’s only appropriate for those who are very short, very old, and/or not moving around at all during the day. Use MFP guided set-up and select a 1 lb per week loss, or .5 lbs per week if you are close to a healthy weight. This will give you a more reasonable amount of calories and make sure you don’t burnout by undereating and fall off the wagon. (Undereating can cause hair loss, muscle loss, fatigue, and eventually endangers the function of your heart).
5. Once you get your calorie target, you should not be trying to stay UNDER it. You should aim for the target as closely as possible, to make sure you’re not undereating. Also, make sure to log your purposeful exercise and eat back at least half of your exercise calories (maybe more, if you end up losing too fast).
Let us know how it goes! Weight loss is not about getting there as fast as possible, because those who use quick tricks to lose lots of weight are much much less likely to keep it off, and they gain it back once they stop the quick tricks.
Use this weight-loss time to find healthy habits that are do-able for the rest of your life.
thank you a lot! this is my first time trying to work a diet and i am having a hard time trying not to eat under 1000 calories. i used to eat a lot of junk food because of my weekly schedule. i need to study 10+ hours a day and it really makes everything harder. i am trying to be a healthier version of myself but its a bit hard for me to do as i have tight studying schedules. that makes it ten times easier for me to get discouraged. i will try to not worry about it and go by your words. thanks a lot!2 -
gallicinvasion wrote: »Hi there! Here are some general ideas you should take with you.
1. Change your expectations: You shouldn’t be expecting to lose weight within a few days. Healthy weight loss occurs over weeks (you should generally aim to lose between .5 and 2 lbs. week, depending on how close you are to a healthy weight right now.) if you expect to see a new low on the scale every single day, you will get discouraged really fast because that’s not how it works for anybody.
2. Your period causes water-weight-retention bloating, which could cause the scale number to go up temporarily. It’s not fat gain, and you shouldn’t change your plan just because your scale weight goes up a little bit.
3. Your Weight does not stay constant. Even when you are maintaining your weight and keeping the same amount of fat, the scale number will go up and down because of food in your system or water-weight (which is unavoidably affected by lots of things, like high sodium intake, getting your period, starting a new exercise, getting sick, eating more carbs than normal, air travel, etc). This is why you should get a weight-trend app like Happy Scale or Libra, where you input your weight every few days and it will smooth out the highs and lows, giving you an average weight trend to follow.
4. You are very likely aiming for too low of a calorie number. 1200 calories a day is the BARE MINIMUM recommended by the healthcare community, and it’s only appropriate for those who are very short, very old, and/or not moving around at all during the day. Use MFP guided set-up and select a 1 lb per week loss, or .5 lbs per week if you are close to a healthy weight. This will give you a more reasonable amount of calories and make sure you don’t burnout by undereating and fall off the wagon. (Undereating can cause hair loss, muscle loss, fatigue, and eventually endangers the function of your heart).
5. Once you get your calorie target, you should not be trying to stay UNDER it. You should aim for the target as closely as possible, to make sure you’re not undereating. Also, make sure to log your purposeful exercise and eat back at least half of your exercise calories (maybe more, if you end up losing too fast).
Let us know how it goes! Weight loss is not about getting there as fast as possible, because those who use quick tricks to lose lots of weight are much much less likely to keep it off, and they gain it back once they stop the quick tricks.
Use this weight-loss time to find healthy habits that are do-able for the rest of your life.
thank you a lot! this is my first time trying to work a diet and i am having a hard time trying not to eat under 1000 calories. i used to eat a lot of junk food because of my weekly schedule. i need to study 10+ hours a day and it really makes everything harder. i am trying to be a healthier version of myself but its a bit hard for me to do as i have tight studying schedules. that makes it ten times easier for me to get discouraged. i will try to not worry about it and go by your words. thanks a lot!
Undereating is not going to help you study. If anything, it may make it harder for you to focus. Fuel your brain and body properly.19 -
I gain 3 to 4 pounds every time I get my period. I don’t even worry about it. And worrying about one pound is micromanaging. Everyone’s weight fluctuates slightly from day to day depending on hormones, diet, fluids, or time of day. One pound means nothing, so don’t sweat it.9
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I'm going to basically reiterate what lots of people have been saying:
Don't stress about this happening overnight (it won't), don't set your calories too low (that's going to cause problems), don't worry about fluctuations (that's natural), and your period is going to mess everything up (always).
I've lost 12 pounds over the last month and I'll give you an overview of my last few days (and I'm not on my period).
Thursday weigh-in: Zero change in weight from Wednesday. None.
Friday weigh-in: Gain 1.2 pounds from Thursday.
Saturday: Lose 2.4 pounds from Friday.
Now, this is the first time over the month I've been tracking that my weight has been so much all over the place in such a short period. Usually, it only goes up or down a little. However, in the last few days, my body has decided to laugh at me for whatever reason. But the trend over the month has been very solidly downward.
My goal is 1630 calories and I'm happy with it. Sometimes I'm a little under it, sometimes I'm a little over it, but I'm focusing a lot on figuring out what recipes will enable me to meet that goal along with meeting my macro and nutrient requirement. Once I figured out my recipe/calorie/macro/nutrient balance, I might be okay going below 1630 if there was some reason to do so, but 1200 would be way too low.3 -
Body weight fluncuates. I admit I am a weight scale slave myself. Yesterday I probs lost 3lbs, next day gained 1 lb and then next day I gained .8 lbs but next three days I’m down to 29. It will never be the same. Best time to weigh is naked after urinating and doing other business before drinking any fluids. Being on a period will make you bloated no matter what. Wait 1 week after period is gone. It’ll be back to normal weight1
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gallicinvasion wrote: »Hi there! Here are some general ideas you should take with you.
1. Change your expectations: You shouldn’t be expecting to lose weight within a few days. Healthy weight loss occurs over weeks (you should generally aim to lose between .5 and 2 lbs. week, depending on how close you are to a healthy weight right now.) if you expect to see a new low on the scale every single day, you will get discouraged really fast because that’s not how it works for anybody.
2. Your period causes water-weight-retention bloating, which could cause the scale number to go up temporarily. It’s not fat gain, and you shouldn’t change your plan just because your scale weight goes up a little bit.
3. Your Weight does not stay constant. Even when you are maintaining your weight and keeping the same amount of fat, the scale number will go up and down because of food in your system or water-weight (which is unavoidably affected by lots of things, like high sodium intake, getting your period, starting a new exercise, getting sick, eating more carbs than normal, air travel, etc). This is why you should get a weight-trend app like Happy Scale or Libra, where you input your weight every few days and it will smooth out the highs and lows, giving you an average weight trend to follow.
4. You are very likely aiming for too low of a calorie number. 1200 calories a day is the BARE MINIMUM recommended by the healthcare community, and it’s only appropriate for those who are very short, very old, and/or not moving around at all during the day. Use MFP guided set-up and select a 1 lb per week loss, or .5 lbs per week if you are close to a healthy weight. This will give you a more reasonable amount of calories and make sure you don’t burnout by undereating and fall off the wagon. (Undereating can cause hair loss, muscle loss, fatigue, and eventually endangers the function of your heart).
5. Once you get your calorie target, you should not be trying to stay UNDER it. You should aim for the target as closely as possible, to make sure you’re not undereating. Also, make sure to log your purposeful exercise and eat back at least half of your exercise calories (maybe more, if you end up losing too fast).
Let us know how it goes! Weight loss is not about getting there as fast as possible, because those who use quick tricks to lose lots of weight are much much less likely to keep it off, and they gain it back once they stop the quick tricks.
Use this weight-loss time to find healthy habits that are do-able for the rest of your life.
thank you a lot! this is my first time trying to work a diet and i am having a hard time trying not to eat under 1000 calories. i used to eat a lot of junk food because of my weekly schedule. i need to study 10+ hours a day and it really makes everything harder. i am trying to be a healthier version of myself but its a bit hard for me to do as i have tight studying schedules. that makes it ten times easier for me to get discouraged. i will try to not worry about it and go by your words. thanks a lot!
You went to the trouble to find MFP - don't just limit yourself to the community forum posts. You'll miss out on a lot of useful and valuable information.
EVery forum has sticky posts with the most common topics explained.
MFP lets you set goals based on your age, weioght and activity level and allows you to log your food so you can see how you are doing to stay on target.
Use these tools. They are there to help us.
good luck.0 -
Also, you don't have to bother with "detox" anything...teas or whatever. It's essentially a waste of money and the result of people trying to scare you in order to sell you something. (Uncertain? Ask a qualified professor.)
If you have functioning liver and kidneys, your body is doing a very nice job indeed of getting rid of the waste chemicals in your body.
Your period is not a toxic event. It's naturally cleansing.0 -
weight fluctuates. periods (i've gained 7lbs both period and ovulation-5 is average for me), other hormone stuff, sodium, new exercise routine.
look at overall trends. i look over a month or months.
undereating is not beneficial to your body or mind.2 -
Some of us just don’t lose all that easily. You study 10 hours a day? Wow chick, I do not have it in me to do more than 6 and it is broken up with chores or maybe a tv show and mfp.
I’m curious what are you studying for? And are you counting class time? You know, if you're under 18 we can't give you advice here. With that, if you are a minor, please work with your doc or family about your concerns. Never listen to a bunch of voices on the internet. You never know who's yappin'.
Weight...
-find some good go to foods that you can grab and snack while studying or set it all down and have a bowl of homemade soup.
-track your weight on an app like libra.
Here’s a screenshot of part of my horrible year. You can see the pms gain easily. It sucks, but I know it’ll come back down if I eat right.
-I’m fairly sedentary and try to keep my calories about 1200. I can’t say I eat that though. Just chose good foods and don’t go hungry to long. My dd will fast for a day or two, and I hate it. She is 24. Just be careful your not flirting with dangerous health habits.
Good luck. Make a plan and be patient. The body isn’t as predictable as we’d like sometimes.
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kenyonhaff wrote: »Also, you don't have to bother with "detox" anything...teas or whatever. It's essentially a waste of money and the result of people trying to scare you in order to sell you something. (Uncertain? Ask a qualified professor.)
If you have functioning liver and kidneys, your body is doing a very nice job indeed of getting rid of the waste chemicals in your body.
Your period is not a toxic event. It's naturally cleansing.
Professor here. I don't know if my qualifications meet the expectations, but as a sociologist with a bachelor's in biology, I can verify that things marketed as "detox" do not serve that purpose in any meaningful biological way. I can also ramble for a while about the social norms and beliefs that this marketing exploits. I am guessing you weren't looking for that
I would also nitpick the idea that menstruation is "cleansing." The body produces a thicker uterine lining in preparation for possible pregnancy. If no pregnancy occurs, that uterine lining is shed, as it's not needed. It's a completely routine and normal process, but I would caution against referring to it as "cleansing" the body since, as you said, the uterine lining is not "unclean" or "toxic." Additionally, many pre-menopausal people do not have regular menses--for a variety of reasons--and that doesn't mean their bodies lack cleansing. (Here is where my sociologist side is refraining from a tangent about beliefs and stigmas concerning menstruation.)
Anyway, the bigger points for OP are that 1) detox products are not useful unless we are discussing a medical procedure prescribed by one's doctor, 2) water fluctuations that accompany one's period are normal and do not require any treatment or action unless there is some reason to suspect an underlying medical concern, and 3) significant, ongoing undereating is a bad idea.11 -
gallicinvasion wrote: »Hi there! Here are some general ideas you should take with you.
1. Change your expectations: You shouldn’t be expecting to lose weight within a few days. Healthy weight loss occurs over weeks (you should generally aim to lose between .5 and 2 lbs. week, depending on how close you are to a healthy weight right now.) if you expect to see a new low on the scale every single day, you will get discouraged really fast because that’s not how it works for anybody.
2. Your period causes water-weight-retention bloating, which could cause the scale number to go up temporarily. It’s not fat gain, and you shouldn’t change your plan just because your scale weight goes up a little bit.
3. Your Weight does not stay constant. Even when you are maintaining your weight and keeping the same amount of fat, the scale number will go up and down because of food in your system or water-weight (which is unavoidably affected by lots of things, like high sodium intake, getting your period, starting a new exercise, getting sick, eating more carbs than normal, air travel, etc). This is why you should get a weight-trend app like Happy Scale or Libra, where you input your weight every few days and it will smooth out the highs and lows, giving you an average weight trend to follow.
4. You are very likely aiming for too low of a calorie number. 1200 calories a day is the BARE MINIMUM recommended by the healthcare community, and it’s only appropriate for those who are very short, very old, and/or not moving around at all during the day. Use MFP guided set-up and select a 1 lb per week loss, or .5 lbs per week if you are close to a healthy weight. This will give you a more reasonable amount of calories and make sure you don’t burnout by undereating and fall off the wagon. (Undereating can cause hair loss, muscle loss, fatigue, and eventually endangers the function of your heart).
5. Once you get your calorie target, you should not be trying to stay UNDER it. You should aim for the target as closely as possible, to make sure you’re not undereating. Also, make sure to log your purposeful exercise and eat back at least half of your exercise calories (maybe more, if you end up losing too fast).
Let us know how it goes! Weight loss is not about getting there as fast as possible, because those who use quick tricks to lose lots of weight are much much less likely to keep it off, and they gain it back once they stop the quick tricks.
Use this weight-loss time to find healthy habits that are do-able for the rest of your life.
thank you a lot! this is my first time trying to work a diet and i am having a hard time trying not to eat under 1000 calories. i used to eat a lot of junk food because of my weekly schedule. i need to study 10+ hours a day and it really makes everything harder. i am trying to be a healthier version of myself but its a bit hard for me to do as i have tight studying schedules. that makes it ten times easier for me to get discouraged. i will try to not worry about it and go by your words. thanks a lot!
You may wish to make a little time for exercise. This can be as simple as walking, and will help your memory, so improve your studying: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes-brain-improve-memory-thinking-skills-2014040971101
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